The Dodo Archive

Chicken Makes Daring Escape From Poultry Farm

Workers at a transport company in Exeter, England made a surprise discovery while performing maintenance on one of their trucks -- a stowaway chicken which had made a daring escape from a nearby poultry farm.

Nathan Ferneyhough, manager at Smv Commercials, tells The Dodo that his crew was first alerted to the fugitive fowl after the driver complained about an unusual sound coming from the vehicle's engine compartment. A mechanic climbed beneath the truck to investigate the noise, only to find it was not mechanical in origin.

"As he took his torch and looked up the chicken looked down at him, he was very surprised!" says Nathan.

Eventually, the chicken jumped down into the mechanic's pit where the escapee was detained -- the only problem is, no one is entirely sure where exactly it had escaped from.

"Our transport company makes deliveries to several poultry farms in the area," says Nathan. "Our drivers only stop for a minute, but somehow the chicken must have found enough time to hop up there."

Lucky for the brazen bird, it could not have picked a better getaway vehicle. As it turns out, one of the company's employees has a soft spot for chickens, and volunteered to adopt the animal to join several others he has at home. Now the escaped chicken won't merely be considered livestock, it will be a cared-for companion.

"It'll have a great life now, they have loads of space," says Nathan. "He treats them as his pets."